Issue Deleting Folders On Mounted Drives

[Chreo]

I cannot delete folders that I create in a folder mounted partition.

The layout is as follows: On drive C: is a folder "Files" which has a partition (with no drive letter assigned) SO doing "dir C:\Files" list the contents of that partition. Now, if I crete a folder in C:\Files and directly tries to delete that by a simple "delete" then I get the "usual" "Access is denied" error. I am owner, have full ACL-rights allowed to delete the folder.

The system has been reinstalled without a format of the mounted partition (that's the whole idea about using a different partition for data and another for the system). FYI: The folder "C:\Files" is designated to be "My Documents" (not that it should matter)

This is an old issue for me (seen several times on different computers using similar setups).

Sofar I've resorted to do a "hard" delete of folders (shift-del) but that is far from ideal in terms of consistency and convenience and besides, "normal" delete SHOULD work.

OT... I've got some beefs about the standard layout of the Windows filesystem and some of the more stupid places and names that are defaults. "My Documents"?! Yeah I KNOW it is MY documents! "Documents and Settings" WTF?!

[Cartoonite]

...delete that by a simple "delete" then I get the "usual" "Access is denied" error. I am owner, have full ACL-rights allowed to delete the folder.

The system has been reinstalled without a format of the mounted partition (that's the whole idea about using a different partition for data and another for the system).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm working under the assumption here that your partition you mount to C:\Files is formatted with the NTFS file system.

With this file system, Windows uses Security IDentifiers (SIDs) to identify the owner of a file or folder. So long as the Windows install stays the same, the SID and the account name are permanently linked. However, when you reformat and reinstall Windows you create a new account and therefore a new SID. Regardless of whether or not the account and domain (in the case of local accounts, the computer name is the domain name) are the same, the chance of that account being assigned the same SID is so remote as to be effectively impossible.

Since ACLs use SIDs and not account names to assign permissions, once the PC has been reformatted and your account recreated, you will find that you are no longer the owner of those files and directories. Since I imagine you are creating your account with Admin permissions, you will still be able to delete the folder, but you will still not be the file owner.

I suspect you could work around this by Taking Ownership of the files once the reinstall is complete, but this is something that would have to be done every time you reformat. I believe similar issues have also arisen when using the $Docs folder to import desired documents during setup. You may want to do a search on that to see if there are any other options that may suit your needs.

OT... I've got some beefs about the standard layout of the Windows filesystem and some of the more stupid places and names that are defaults. "My Documents"?! Yeah I KNOW it is MY documents! "Documents and Settings" WTF?!

So, um, what's your point?

By definition default setting can be modified. So if you don't like the defaults, change them. Complaining about and/or mocking them isn't going to accomplish anything. Unless, of course, you just happen to like the sound of your own voice.

Good luck luck getting your issue resolved, and welcome to MSFN.